


Cherubim and Seraphim

by PipesFlowForeverandEver



Series: Hymns of Struggle [15]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: F/F, Its kind of fluffy I guess, and francine and alice develop romantic feelings, because tbh they would if not for francine's association with people alice hates, if alice was the companion instead of sammy, its not canon to events in my series and is kind of a big "what if" about alice's reaction to her, mostly just alice longingly looking at Francine and having no idea what to do about her feelings, this is basically an au of my au Hymns of Struggle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-09 03:43:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15258672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PipesFlowForeverandEver/pseuds/PipesFlowForeverandEver
Summary: While she fights every day to reach perfection, Alice stands behind the woman who fights to keep it. The demon and his minions are always ready to strike- to take it away- but she won't let it happen. Over her dead body.





	1. Caged Birds

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so this is pretty different than my usual stuff! This here is an AU of an AU- yeah, it's a lot to wrap your head around lol. Basically this is me wondering what it would be like if in my Hymns of Struggle series, the companion character for Francine was Alice instead of Sammy, and I evaluate how that would change both of their perspectives and how the studio seems through Francine's eyes. 
> 
> And honestly? If not for Alice's deep hatred for Bendy and Sammy's worship of him (and Francine being associated with both), Alice and Francine would have a much different relationship than they do in my main story. And if I think about it more? Room for romantic feelings. There's some plot I have in mind, but this is mostly drabbles.
> 
> "Hymns" very much focuses on familial and platonic love and intimacy, so the tone of this is very new to me and I hope I handle it well! Oh and of course, **this isn't canon to my main series "Hymns of Struggle."**
> 
> (Additionally, the plot of this is vaguely inspired by the song and music video of "Jenny" by Studio Killers).

The creak of the elevator as its skimmed up its vertical cavern was as distinct as ever; its muted screech of metal as moving gears pushed the box up and up was somehow no louder than usual even as it housed two travelers instead of the usual one. Alice considered, even, that maybe it was trying to be quieter in polite company.

And oh how nice was it to have such company.

To Alice Angel’s right stood a woman shorter than she- or maybe she was taller than the height Susie used to be when she was human. The seraph supposed it didn’t matter. An old life discarded entirely as Susie became Alice to persist through an existence of suffering; she had survived and evolved into something that could withstand the harsh winter of immortality.

But had she thrived?

Alice refused to let the mortal notice her staring, but it didn’t seem to be so difficult of a task. Francine was gazing forward with half-lidded- almost dreamy eyes- with the shadow of the elevator’s bars slowly rolling over her face and making her eyes glisten in the dark. They made Alice’s perfect eye shine, too, as her mind began to swim in the depths of beautiful mortality. The intruder had everything she wanted, everything Alice knew she deserved.

It was a magnificent, bittersweet pain to see someone with everything Alice ever wanted for herself.

Here it was, and she couldn’t have any of it.

…And yet she could have it all-

A strange hope was thrown aside as soon as its bubbling warmth crept into the angel’s heart, like taking a pot off the stove just as water began to boil. She didn’t know what she had meant by that, and yet it made her feel so much…and so it was terrifying.

So wonderfully terrifying.

If Francine had been watching back, she would have noticed her heavenly companion shift in discomfort as the mortal began to reach into the bag by her side and pull out a tube of pink lipstick. What a silly thing to do down here- to put attention into appearances where they seemed to matter none.

The thick blade of color lingered over her lips as the woman waited for the ride to end and for another peril to begin. They were safe- doubtlessly safe- for just a moment longer, and so this is how she chose to spend precious time. Alice noticed the way it got stuck on the middle of her mouth, that slight bump that the tube had to stretch in order to finally surpass and continue its glide to the corner of her lips-

Again- she let herself think about it again. But how could she help it? As light and dark took turns dancing on their faces as they ascended to cloud nine, the angel was helpless but to allow her inky heart to flutter in tandem- feathered wings of a dove soaring into complete and utter…elation? Delight? _Fear?_

And this feeling flew away as the elevator door opened, their cage releasing the women into a world unforgiving of the perfection they had.

Perfection amid the imperfect- Alice had always noted- brought wrath worthy of hell. And certainly, the demon and his minions had made it feel like such.

And now there was someone else to partake in this wonderful misery with. Francine somehow scraped into this inky purgatory with no damage to her marvelous humanity; a pristine flower merely stained with drops of ink where every other intruder had either their petals torn to shreds or for them to be poisoned until the black twisted through their veins…cursed to never wither, even if they wanted to.

Alice knew this, and so instead of allowing herself to crave for the rosy red that once flushed her skin, painted her lips, and coursed through her body, she embraced the ivory and sketched details of the toon she once voiced.

To be Alice, she knew, was to survive.

But again, did she thrive?

Francine had mindlessly dropped the lipstick back where she found it and oddly forgot the bag itself as she bravely stepped forward to face a life cruel to those who had the gall to stand up to its horrors. It made Alice’s expression soften, strands of shiny black hair falling over her shoulder and crossing over her face as a slight upturn of the chin accompanied a growing sense of understanding.

She knew oh so very well that it wasn’t appearances Francine cared about but her sense of humanity, of purpose, and of identity. Alice grasped this because she herself hoped for the same.

And so while Francine’s back was turned as she so boldly tried to embrace life amid everlasting death, Alice reached into the bag for the very same lipstick, twisted off the cap, and brought the woman’s pink to her own black lips and shredded flesh.

It touched them ever so gently, ever so lovingly, and Alice didn’t want to admit that she couldn’t say why it made her feel just a little bit more beautiful than she was before.


	2. Saints at Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Alice was the silly one after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for all the support you guys! I usually don't write romance so this is very new and unsure for me. Hope you enjoy this AU of the AU!

What a peculiar sight. More fit for a college student and her roommate’s dorm rather for than the middle of an inky abyss lined with cracked, rotting wood and rusting metal. What were the usual noises? Creaking gears, the shifting of floorboards, dripping of leaky pipes.

So, so unusual for those sounds to be overwhelmed by those of glee.

The woman’s rose-plated phone was resting face down- and speaker-up- on an old table. Jingly tones vibrated onto its surface but most managed to reach the air; somehow a world of shadows was so vibrant, so colorful, just by allowing delight to stay alive.

Someone in this room would disagree it was because of the sound of music alone.

Another thing drifted the air, Alice perceived, as she let her hand lay on its side by the device; her left arm was lounged over the table as the angel sat in a seat alongside but faced outward at something truly bizarre for this place.

But equally wonderful.

It was a shame the woman wasn’t wearing a skirt to twirl and twist about the air as she let herself dance to the music. When did those start going out of style? Indeed, Francine in her self-indulgence was allowing Alice to peer into a bit of the modern world; the only way she could describe this was… “bouncy.” Bouncing beat, bouncing feet.

_“Silly girl,”_ Alice thought to herself with a bouncing heart. There was a glimmer in her eye, and something invisible pinched the right corner of her face up- pulled the other side, too, but that was neither felt nor able to be seen.

Although Alice at this point assumed that her cherub didn’t see her anymore anyway.

A thoughtless giggle chimed through the mortal’s teeth, her lips pulled so far that her mouth was almost open. It was a scale of notes accidentally climbing into the open from the depths of her heart, its force so mighty that its release made Francine’s eyes scrunch until they were closed. Maybe it was symbolic; closed eyes to a world that hated her, overwhelming all other senses with the ones she adored until she could shut out all the evils, all the sin, all the transgressions against what was formerly a pristine existence.

And how such persistent mindlessness echoed to the walls made Alice feel something she didn’t know how to describe.

Flustered with feelings that didn’t make sense, Alice sought a different kind of distraction than that of her new companion. It wasn’t a hard endeavor; there was a pink box pulsing right by her side. Now, Alice had seen Francine mess with it before- she had a vague knowledge of it. But…

The hand that rested by the phone inched its way closer, fingertips eventually closing in until it lay in her palm.

No one could ever say Alice wasn’t just a _little_ bit curious about what the woman had brought with her from her descent from above.

Her thumbs rested on the screen as she put it some ways from her chest. The image of an orange music note flushed a glow onto her inky gloves. The angel allowed her smile to return, but it was soon lost in the surprise of change as a lingering stroke of her thumb caused the sight before her to turn into another.

Now, Alice had said it before herself: So many possibilities for the beautiful- how was a girl to choose? It was said long ago in a tease, in playfulness, and now she was a victim of her own quotation as the phone presented so _many_ different things. Each was a different path of discovery- she could surmise from how Francine had treated it before in the corner of her peripheral time after time- with but only another touch.

A dark pupil caught a certain one of these boxes in her stare, a grey and purple reflection pinning itself to the white of her eye in its illumination.

And so the camera app opened and there was yet another Francine in her hands, both twirling in front of her. The seraph’s face fell and somehow her ripped side seemed to unify its formed counterpart in conveying absolute awe.

An incredible feeling. The pulse of music in her hands, a film before her very eyes in perfect- _perfect-_ quality. Lips parted in amazement and her gaze flickered down to something that obscured an otherwise exact replica of something just a meter or two away.

She pressed the button, and involuntarily gave a flurry of blinks as the screen pulsed white and an even smaller, still version of that moment appeared in the bottom left corner.

_Oh._

That’s all it took for the formed side of Alice’s face to stretch and stretch until an innocently devious idea painted over her expression.

And she took picture…after picture…after picture.

She shouldn’t have been as taken aback as she was to notice that almost like stop motion animation, each briefly frozen frame began to turn more towards the camera, eyes began to open, and dancing from a ways away turned into a gradual approach that filled more and more of the screen.

A gasp- a very uncommon admission of surprise from the angel- fell from black lips as the woman finally, gently curled some of her fingers over the top of the phone. Francine’s head tilted, hair brushing just a bit over her face as a small grin tugged at the corners of her mouth.

Now Alice wasn’t someone that liked to be caught in the middle of something, and even more so she wasn’t someone that liked making herself vulnerable. It wasn’t until Francine stood over the sitting angel, observing this unusual strike of lightheartedness, that Alice realized that’s what she was.

Vulnerable.

And so it was only logical for her sense of self-preservation to take over, years of sheltering herself from sharing anything with anyone in this godforsaken place driving her to frantically claw her way out- of this app, of these photos, of this entire situation.

And then her fumble found the flashlight.

Francine flinched back slightly, mouth curved in an “o” shape with an accompanying grunt that was likely going to be a question until sudden radiance hit her eyes. With her movement, the beam of light fell over her shoulder and drifted into the darkness of the halls behind for who knows how far away.

The ray itself didn’t touch him, but its particles of illumination coasted until it glittered his skin- the drips that slithered to the floor and all over his cursed body.

Hell had found heaven at last.


End file.
